I Don't Want To Have To
by superlabelgirl
Summary: Pickles is living large, Snakes n' Barrels reaching the height of its popularity. But no amount of drugs, sex, or success can stop his past can coming back for him. SnB era Pickles. Rated T for profanity, non-explicit drugs, sex, and violence, and very explicit glam metal. Please R&R!
1. Glam Metal Overdose

((Blah blah intro. I recently remembered Metalocalypse again and have become re-obsessed with it. Lately I have been interested in Pickles' character, since he seems like a pretty decent guy who knows no other way to cope with things than to be drunk and high out of his mind all the time. It made me wonder what sort of stuff he needed to forget, besides his generally shitty homelife. Then I saw this headcanon on the metalocalypseheadcanons blog about how Seth might be manipulating him, and someone wanted a fic written about it. I sort of am going overboard because I like Pickles a lot, and it is gives me a chance to write about him in Snakes n' Barrels. The song he is singing is "Kill You", one of two "canon" Snakes n' Barrels songs. (Look it up it's good, ahem.) Rated T for profanity and non-explicit mentions of drugs, sex and violence. If you have something to say, please review! I plan to write a couple more chapters and I want to make them good. Enjoy!))

They had left and the stage had grown dark, but the crowd had cheered, sobbed, begged for more. "Encore, encore!" they had screamed, the French word spilling from the mouths of these druggies and freaks, these ne'er-do-wells looking for hard-edged rebellion against their flower power parents, because they knew what they wanted- _more_. "One more song!" they had cried, just like the band knew they would. The music was as addictive as the crack, the smack and the blow, maybe even more so. Even as it got the crowd high, they wanted more, come on, just a little taste, until they ODed on the drums and the strums and the thrumming of the bass, and his voice, and his body, and his face.

Pickles began tapping the heel of his boot against the stage, microphone in hand, as the band stood onstage in the dark. _Click, click, click, click_, went his heel against the floorboards, the barest of percussion. A slow-burning cry of excitement began to spread through the crowd as they realized what was coming, just from the beat. They were hot for this, burning up, as feverish as drug-itch and lust combined, and Snakes n' Barrels was going to give them everything they wanted.

All at once, the dark stage exploded in light and color, flooding the venue with all the hues of the acid-washed rainbow as Candy's frenzied drum opening joined with the tapping of Pickles' heel. The crowd shrieked, it _roared_ as Snazz's guitar and Tony's bass joined in. And once Pickles flashed them all his trademark smirk and began to sing, the entire crowd lost its mind.

_I don't want to have to kill you,  
They'll find out and I will feel blue.  
_

He held the microphone close as he sang, each word enunciated deliberately, eyes smoldering into every single one of these fuckers. He ran his fingers down the microphone with the sort of caress that could so easily become a chokehold, equal parts sex and psycho, equal parts love and death. He continued the song, his high voice lilting over torture, his lithe body gyrating for murder.

_Ah, ah, ah, ah.  
_He gasped and growled. He played his guitar as he sang, slim fingers sliding along the frets.

_Na na na na, na na na na. Na na na na, na na na na na.  
_ He purred and prowled. He moved around the stage as he played, shameless, resplendent. He came back to the center, posing, pausing for effect before the band carried him to the next verse.

_I don't want to have to eat you.  
_He ran his tongue across his lips, slowly and deliberately, and he swore he could hear women having heart attacks for him.

_I won't fit into my swimsuit.  
_He trailed a hand along his body, showing them what a hot little body would be lost for this cannibalistic endeavor. He smiled widely, animalistic, showing too much teeth. He sang sensually about tearing them open, about crimson and bone. He was their wet dreams and their nightmares, and he would be haunting their sleep tonight.

_I don't want to have to,  
I don't want to have to,  
I don't want to have to,  
I don't want to have to!_

He froze in place for the last riff, the center of a perfect tableau.

He was a god.

The crowd was silent for the length of a heartbeat after the song ended. Then, they exploded into cheering and applause. Pickles grinned as he brought the mike to his mouth and spoke, his Wisconsin accent present as it never was in his singing. "When they ask ya who rawked yer world, tell 'em it was SNAKES N' BARRELS!" he shouted, and the crowd screamed back the ecstasy of its assent. "Thank you, g'night!" he said, and the band left the crowd to the high of its glam metal overdose.

Once they were safely backstage, the roadies packing away their instruments as the dazed crowd began to pour out, Pickles broke into a giddy laughter. "Doods, we fuckin' rawked thet!" he exclaimed, beaming at the other band members. "I mean, did you see 'em oot there? They were fuckin' dyin' fer us!"

Despite the fact that he was well-initiated into this world of drugs and sex, Pickles was still a kid, a nineteen-year-old runaway with dreams as puffed up as his hair. Rock and roll was still a fantasy world to him, only ugly in the fun, glitzed out way. Even after the band's tough start, the fights, and the shitty gigs, he was still pure of showbiz cynicism. Something about his wide-eyed enthusiasm was contagious, and it spread through the rest of the band like wildfire. "He's right," Tony agreed, grinning, his voice still slurring a little. "We've fucking made it, boys!"

"To Snakes n' Barrels!" Candy said, his chest glistening with sweat after the final drum solo, high on more than just adrenaline. They all repeated his cry, all feeling untouchable.

"Now what do you say we all celebrate?" Snazz said, wiping his brow and running a hand through his blown-out hair.

"Fuck yeh, dood!" Pickles' eyes lit up at the prospect. "Let's get us some booze, blow, n' bitches!" The whole band seemed to approve of this plan. They were all still pretty high from the pre-show beer and smack, but they were starting to come down and ready for more. They headed to their dressing rooms to get some vodka and groupies before they really hit the scene. As they began to walk back, Pickles felt someone tap his arm with a rushed "Excuse me, sir."

He looked up to see one of the security guards. It was a new guy, a generic asshole with a black suit and a thick neck, one that had only started for this tour. He was looking down at Pickles. Even in his boots, Pickles was still short enough that he had to look up at most of these giants, and that alone made him irritable. The fact that this man was stopping him from his celebratory booze, blow, and bitches did not help matters. He looked to his bandmates, who had stopped with him but seemed just as anxious to start the festivities. "Go ahn wit'out me, I'll catch up soon," he said to them, and they shrugged and went ahead. Pickles turned his attention to the guard. "Whuduya want?"

The guard adjusted his sunglasses, which Pickles thought looked stupid as fuck. Who the fuck needed sunglasses at night? "Sir, I apologize for interrupting you, but there's someone backstage who's quite anxious to see you."

He grinned at that. "Lotsa girls are anxious ta see me. Tell 'er ta wait wit' the uh'ters, I'll get to 'er soon enough."

The guard shook his head. "It's, not a woman, sir. It's a man, and he says it's quite urgent."

The grin disappeared as quickly as it came. "Unless this dood's gaht some'tin that will blow my fuckin' mind, I'm naht interested," he said dismissively, turning to walk back.

"He says- it's regarding your mother, sir," the man said, shifting slightly.

Pickles stopped mid-step, a chill running through him. After a moment, he turned around. "My mahm?" he asked, voice steeped in shock and disbelief. His mother hadn't tried to contact him since he'd left home- none of his family had. Even his success and fame had done nothing to dissuade their stony silence. What could have happened, to make her want to contact him now? After a moment, his shoulders slumped in resignation, something human threatening to show through the glam. "Fine, whatever. Show me where dis guy is."

The guard nodded, leading the way as Pickles followed. He tried to gain back some of his swaying swagger, to feel like a glam god again. He had just rocked a crowd of ten thousand people! He had made it big, and he was living the dream. There was nothing that could take that away from him.

And he almost felt back to normal, until he looked up at where the guard was pointing. Before that moment, he was convinced that nothing could take away what he had made of himself. And there, slouching in a white leisure suit, was the reason why he was wrong. The reason why he would always be wrong.

"Ay, what's up, huh, my fuckin' little brother?" The man smirked at him, pulling him in for a hug that Pickles was too dumbstruck to avoid. "Been a long fucking time, huh, three years we haven't seen you, since you ran out on the family, huh? Saw your show, real cute, this little glitzed up shit you do, real cute."

Pickles didn't move. He just listened as his brother's voice took on that low, buzzing quality, an insidious murmur that hammered against Pickle's mind. He listened as it knocked on a door inside of him, a door leading to something filled with ugliness and hate. "But I got to interrupt your little, you know, singing dress up games, just to ask you a few things, you know, since everything's come real easy to you, out here in this fucking, big city. You're a big shot, big city guy now, huh, and I just think you should probably, you know, help out your brother, for once in your life, give back to the family, huh?"

The voice buzzed, rapping harder and harder on the door to his own personal hell. "Seth," he managed to say as his brother finally took his fucking hands off of him, staring Pickles down with that same smirk. He wanted to say more, but no words came. Nothing came, except the desire to let out something inside him, something that he had locked up with years of drug and alcohol abuse, something brutal and terrible. He had to stay silent.

Seth clapped a hand onto Pickles' shoulder, and he stiffened at the touch. "Come on, little bro," he said. "Let's go backstage or whatever. We got things to discuss, you and me, a real brother to brother talk, heart to fucking heart."

Pickles let himself be led towards his own dressing room. All he could feel was his brother's hand on his shoulder. It sucked all the color out of him, all the confidence. It left him feeling cold and dark, and it made him feel sick. He hated it, but he couldn't do anything about it, not yet. This is how it always was when he was with Seth. First he felt shock, then numbness, and then the anger came.

It was only a matter of time.


	2. What a Joke

It wasn't until they had walked together, past his confused bandmates and into Pickles' dressing room, that Pickles felt safe enough to speak. "Seth, whuduya _doin'_ here?" he asked, irritation quickly settling into his tone. He remembered what the guard had said about his mother. "Did somethin' happen t' Mahm?"

"What?" Seth looked like he had no idea what Pickles was talking about, until a look of recognition and then dismissal crossed his face. "Oh, heh, yeah. No, she just, you know, fucking says hello, wants to know how her fuckup son is and all. Hey hey, her words, not mine," he said, holding up his hands when Pickles glared at him. Pickles very much doubted that those had been her exact words, but that wasn't why him angry. What made him angry was that Seth had used another bullshit lie to get his way, probably acted all grief-stricken to get the guard's attention. He always pulled this sort of manipulative, infuriating shit. "Anyway, whatever Mom thinks of you, that shit isn't what I came here to talk about, bro."

"Whuduya want, Seth?" he asked, already weary of this. Seth didn't call him "bro", or anything other than an insult, unless he wanted something. He just hoped that whatever it was, he could get it over with.

"Hey, hey, hey, what sort of fucking attitude is that to have, huh?" Seth spread his arms in a gesture of hurt helplessness, like he was enduring his brother's cruelty with the patience of a long-suffering saint. Pickles felt a small muscle under his eye begin to twitch. "Maybe I just want to check in on my baby bro, see how his little stint into _entertainment_ is going, because I'm a caring fucking brother, huh?"

Pickles made a small noise in the back of his throat, something between a growl and a strangled scream. He reached for a pint bottle of beer from a small cooler, opened it with his teeth, and drank the whole bottle before he spoke. "You heven't said one word 't me in three fuckin' years. Naht you, an' naht oor parents, who are too busy t'inkin' thet I'm shit an' thet you're a gift from Gahd. Naht a letter or a call or anyt'ing since I left, an' when I was there, you either treated me like garbage or told me I fuckin' _was_ garbage." He opened another bottle, holding it so tightly that he feared it would break, and took a long swig before continuing. "Naht once in yer life have you jest wanted t' 'check in ahn' me, Seth. Jest tell me what the fuck you want."

Seth shrugged, still not giving up on the whole "caring brother" act despite all that. He was committed if nothing else, a shameless liar to the last. "I mean, just because I wanna talk to my brother, doesn't mean I can't also, y'know, be asking a little help. Seein' as how you're out here living large, how fucking Hollywood you've gotten with your, y'know, your little songs and your fucking faggy getup-"

Pickles was finishing his second pint bottle at that point, and that made him nearly choke on the liquid. His eyes burned as he threw the empty bottle against the wall, where it shattered loudly. "My fuckin' WHAT?" he yelled.

"Hey, hey, c'mon, I'm just kidding with you, Pickles," Seth pressed on, seemingly unaffected by the shattered bottle. "Just because you're wearing, fucking eyeliner and women's jeans, who the fuck am I to judge? What does that shit matter between brothers? We're not here to judge, we're here to be fucking supportive, huh? To _help each other out._ Which is why I'm all fucking out here, supporting you and shit, and waiting to see if you have, even a fucking little interest in what_ I've_ been doing."

Pickles clenched and unclenched his fists, his breathing becoming harsh and ragged. He desperately hoped that this wasn't his asthma flaring up. He had gone almost two years without an attack, but he started to fall apart in his Seth's presence, like his brother was his own personal disease. He tried to take a deep breath and compose himself, giving Seth a strange grin, more a bearing of teeth than of mirth. "What _have_ ya been doin', Seth?" he asked, his voice saturated with false cheer and false involvement. His frustration was nearly palpable beneath the sweet, paper-thin tone, but Seth launched into his schpeel all the same.

"Glad you fucking asked! Let me tell you about this idea I had, it's gonna blow your fucking mind." He tilted his head to one side, then the other, putting on his salesman voice. "So I've been studying like, pharmacology while you been away, pharmaceuticals and shit, and it's going so, so fuckin' well. So I was thinkin', out in the boonies and shit, those poor douchebags have to go, fuckin' miles to get their pills and shit? My buddies have this, this real nice van, you know, and I was thinking, people would pay would pay for the fuckin' convenience of not having to even leave their neighborhoods to get their shit. So we got this whole plan, this whole fuckin' thing worked out, and the three of us, we're starting a real business, the real fuckin' deal. We're going to be a fucking traveling pharmacy, how about that? We drive to your fuckin' house, or to your piece of shit town, you give us the doctor's note, we give you your fuckin' drugs! How about that, huh?"

Pickles was well into his third beer by the time Seth finished talking. He drank deeply while he listened, and the beginning of tipsiness helped him get a handle on his rage. As far as his brother's little business schemes went, this wasn't the worst one. Sure, the whole "traveling pharmacist" angle, given the histories of Seth's friends, could slide into crystal meth dealing really quickly. But at least this one had the potential of _looking _legal, if nothing else. And at least now he knew what his brother was here for. He put down his beer for a moment and tried to answer. "Yeh, sure, sounds great," he said, already sounding tired. The sooner he gave this asshole what he wanted, the sooner he would go and leave Pickles alone. He picked up his beer again. "So what, y' want money t' get started? Like three hundred, five hundred?"

Seth grabbed his own beer from the cooler, opening it coolly and taking a slow, measured sip. "Five thousand."

Pickles did an honest-to-God spit-take. The beer he had been drinking flew from his mouth, the outer spray hitting Seth in the face. Seth didn't even flinch, just closed his eyes and wiped the beer spittle off. "Why don't you watch what the fuck you're doing, huh?"

"Five thoosand?!" Pickles shouted back, his pupils pinpricks as he gesticulated with the beer bottle. "Y' have the fuckin' _nerve _t' ask me to drop five grand ahn this shit?"

"Fuck Pickles, quit it with your fucking, childish theatrics, honestly," Seth said, rolling his eyes. "Do you not get that you have to spend money to make money? Five thousand would get the fucking van in shape, get us licenses, the medicines, gas, the whole fucking deal. You'd be a fucking shareholder and everything, start making money off drugs, instead of just blowing your cash on 'em like a chump."

"Don't you _dare_ fuckin' tell me what t'do wit' my life. If I'm such a fuckin' screwup, why are you here askin' me for money? Why don't you pay fer yer own shit?"

Seth shrugged, looking away briefly. "I don't exactly, have the assets right now, to put up the capital, y'know, gotta be a smart spender and shit."

"An' you do that by spendin' your money to come here an' ask me fer five Gs fer anot'er one of yer stupid plans? Y' think y' can still bully little Pickles outta his lunch money an' shit? Fuck you!" His voice got loud and sounded almost hysterical, but he couldn't seem to stop it. "I'm the real fuckin' deal now! I'm naht some stupid little kid you can push around anymore, y' fuckin' douchebeag, n' I'm naht givin' you any more fuckin' money!"

Seth narrowed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, calm and collected, everything that Pickles was not. "Listen here, you little shit. You seriously think that you're anything without me? You think you're big time now? What a fucking joke." Seth took another slow, measured drink, before his voice continued its quiet assault on Pickles' sanity. "Let me make this real clear for you, fag. Nothing you do here means shit. Mom isn't proud of you. No one outside of this retarded city is proud of you. They're all just laughing at what a little fucking faggot you are. Congratulations on being even more of a fucking joke than you already were. The only thing you've managed, is to get is boatloads of cash from all the dumbass pussies that like your shitty music. You give me some of the money you would have blown on coke and body glitter, I can fucking invest it in a fucking business venture, something to be proud of. Then maybe Mom will have a reason to actually care about you, and not pretend to act surprised when people say that that little red-haired homo all dolled up in L.A. looks a lot like the retard son she used to have, pretend she's never met that fucking pathetic queer, gyrating onstage like a cheap tranny whore, and sucking on whiskey bottles like he wishes they were cock-"

Seth was abruptly cut off as Pickles punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. Seth tried to hit back as Pickles knelt over him, but he was fast, and stronger than Seth probably remembered. "Shut up!" Pickles screamed as he punched him in the stomach once, then again in the face, then he found his hands wrapped around Seth's thin freckled neck. "Shut up," he found himself repeating quietly as Seth struggled for breath. "Shut up shut up shut up shut up…"

_Pickles, stop it! You're killing him!_

He stopped muttering as he heard his mother's voice ring through his head, just like it had the first time. And just like the first time, he obediently let go of his brother's throat, hands at his sides, because he just wanted to be a good boy, a good son. He shook himself clear of the memory, staring down blankly at his brother. A trickle of blood moved from Seth nose and down his slightly purple face as he gasped for breath, but he still somehow looked unfazed. Maybe it was because he had known that he would be fine. That Pickles would never be able to hurt him enough to make him stop.

Pickles mechanically got off of him, taking long, wheezing breaths. He fumbled around in some drawers, withdrew his inhaler, and used to get his breathing back to normal. Then he brushed himself off, stared at the floor. "Get out."

Pickles' bandmates saw Seth leave about thirty seconds later, dabbing at his bloody nose with a tissue but otherwise unbothered. Pickles came out a few minutes later, with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a bag of coke in the other. The rest of the band all watched him with something like concern, but he didn't even seem to notice them. Without saying a word, Pickles poured some coke out of the bag, grabbed a straight razor and started making lines. After about twenty seconds of awkward silence, Tony spoke up. "Hey Pickles, you OK?"

"Fine! Jest fuckin' fine." Pickles snorted the first line. "Least, I will be soon." Then the second line. "I jest gotta get fucked up first." Then the third, the fourth, the fifth. As Pickles checked to make sure his nose wasn't bleeding, Tony came up to him, put a hand on his shoulder. Pickles whirled around, shoved him off. "Don't fuckin' touch me, dood!" he shouted, looking almost scared.

Tony let go and backed off, but his eyes didn't leave Pickles. "Look man, maybe we should just stay in tonight. Just a few drinks, maybe a groupie or two, and tomorrow we can get properly fucked up, OK?"

Candynose and Snazz looked a little let down, but nodded, and for a moment Pickles considered this offer. But then he shook his head, grabbed his vodka and blow. "I gotta be on my own right now, guys," he said, and he hurried out before they could say anything else.

On the way out of the stadium, he ran into the security guard again. "Y' fuckin' douchebeag!" he yelled at him, catching him a little by surprise. "Y' couldn't a fuckin' told me it was my brother waitin' fer me?"

The guard turned to speak to him. "Sir, I apologize. I had no idea that he was your brother. He told me he was a friend with news about your mother, that it was urgent…"

"Y' couldn't a checked his ID or somethin'? We have the same fuckin' last name, y' moron!"

Pickles poked the guard in the chest, who remained stock still but began to frown noticeably. "Sir, I don't even know what your last name is. You're very guarded about it being known-"

"Shuddup!" Pickles cut him off, glaring up at this man a good eight inches taller than him. "The point is that you can't do yer fuckin' job. Yer off as soon as the tour is over." And with that, he pushed past him and stumbled into the street, no idea where he was going, his bottle of vodka sloshing as he walked.


	3. Purple But Not

((Wow so this chapter ended up being a lot longer than I expected it to be. This chapter is somewhat sexually explicit, nothing too graphic, but just a heads-up. And Frankie Switchblade, while more or less an OC for the purposes of this fic, is actually briefly mentioned in Snakes n' Barrels II. Enjoy!))

Pickles didn't know how long it had been when he put the empty vodka bottle on the ground- it could have been thirty minutes or three hours. But it didn't matter, because the important thing was that he was well and truly fucked up. He was so wasted that it was difficult to stand, so he sat down in an alley and stared at the pattern of the bricks.

Similarly he didn't know how long he sat there before he heard the footsteps coming towards him. "Hey there, stranger," he heard someone say, the voice low and smooth and strangely familiar. Pickles turned his head, which made the whole world tilt about 45 degrees, to look at the figure stumbling into the alley with him. He was just a tall mass of colors at first, white boots and purple pants, shiny black jacket and tan chest, and hair that… Pickles tried to focus his thoughts. The guy's hair was something special. It was long, which wasn't too strange in this scene, but it was wavy and thick and this sort of color that was like… purple but not… he tried to think of what it would be called. Fuchsia? Magenta? It was one of those fancy color names that he couldn't remember, but he liked it, and he remembered liking it, and he remembered thinking when he had first seen it that he shouldn't like a guy's hair so much, but that didn't seem to matter so much now. Even in his hazy state, he only knew one guy with hair like that.

"Frankie?" he called out, slowly turning toward him. "Frankie, that you?"

"In the flesh." Frankie Switchblade smirked and sat down next to him, knocking the empty vodka bottle out of the way. He stretched out his long legs and arms, trailing his fingers along the bricks of the wall behind him. "Been a while, hasn't it?"

"Yeh." Pickles shifted so that he was facing him, putting his hands on the ground to steady himself. "Saw yer gig last week, but I couldn't stick around, y'know."

"Yeah, I know. Hard to make time for the little guys when you're such hot shit, huh?" Frankie smiled good-naturedly at him to show that there was no bitterness in the jibe, just a pleasant intoxication.

Pickles laughed, sliding down until he was slouching against the wall. "C'mon man, y'know it's not like that. I prahbably wouldn't know shit about this town if it wasn't fer you." The words tumbled out without him thinking about them, but they were true. Frankie had been on the scene for years before Pickles got there, and the famously manic drummer of Super Destroyer Fuck Machine was just as famous for his drugs and partying. He and Pickles had hit it off right away, and he had always showed him around when Tony had been busy, when he had just been some seventeen year old kid starstruck by the glam and sleaze.

"Heh, you flatter me," Frankie chuckled, tilting his head to the side. "It's just crazy how you're this big star now. Heard you killed at your gig tonight." He slouched down to where Pickles was, his nails dragging lightly against the brick as he moved down. " 'M proud of you, kid."

Pickles looked down. "Yeh, thanks," he murmured absently, staring down at his hands. The gig. He had almost forgotten. The gig itself had been great, but he had barely gotten offstage when… He clenched his fists, feeling his knuckles curl against the leather of his fingerless gloves, then unclenched them. He didn't want to think about it. He was here because he didn't want to think about it.

Frankie tried to catch his gaze again. "I'm surprised you're not with your band. You guys should be celebrating in style, right?"

Pickles shrugged. "Yeh, but, I dunno, somethin' happened afterwards that threw me ahf."

Frankie's eyebrows raised slightly. "You fight with one of them?"

"Nah, naht one of them."

There was a silence between the two of them. "Wanna talk about it?" Frankie finally asked.

"No, I mean, I dunno. It's just, family shit, dood. Makes me fuckin' sick."

Frankie pulled a joint out of his pocket, lit it up. "Yeah, I know what that's like. Picture this: your Republican parents are deciding what pre-med school you'll go to, an' you tell them that you're going to dye your hair, wear leather pants, and run off to L.A. to play 'the devil's music'." He took a deep drag and exhaled the smoke almost elegantly. "My dad pointed his NRA certified rifle at me the whole time I was leaving, and I'm still not sure if he was joking."

"It's just my fuckin' brother, dood," he said, the remnants of his anger making the words hiss out of his mouth like steam. "He acts like he's the best fuckin' thing to walk the earth and he's naht, he's a fuckin' scumbag asshole an' my parents don't even seem 't _notice_." He clenched and unclenched his fists again, more tightly this time. "I get fuckin' crazy when I see him, makes it so I don't wanna be around _anyone_."

Frankie watched him, his eyes wide with an expression Pickles was too wasted to properly decipher. Finally, he offered him the joint. "You OK being around me?" he asked.

Pickles watched him for a moment, then took the joint, took a puff. "Yeh, I'm OK being around you."

They sat there for a while in silence, but the silence was oddly comfortable. They passed the joint back and forth, and after a while Frankie slipped an arm around him. Pickles dimly thought that he should be bothered by that, but he wasn't- there was something comforting about just being next to someone right then, someone who didn't want anything from him except for him to be there. He leaned against Frankie a little, smoking the last of the joint until it was just ash, when he felt fingers moving rhythmically through his teased hair.

"Dood, what are ya doin'?" he murmured, looking up at Frankie's face but not moving away.

"Just touching your hair," he replied, like it was as natural as breathing. "Why? You want me to stop?"

"I dunno man, naht really." He actually shifted a little towards his touch. "Feels sorta good actually, relaxin' or somethin'. Just seems like a weird thing fer you t' be doin'."

"Why would it be weird?" Frankie asked, letting Pickles' hair run through his fingers. "Your hair's fucking amazing, man. Why wouldn't I want to touch it?"

"Haha, what?" Pickles chuckled a little, eyes flicking up to Frankie. Looking at his dilated pupils, things made more sense. He knew Frankie liked his E, and from how he was acting now he was probably pretty faced out. But Pickles wasn't one to judge, being high on booze and blow and smack too, if the recent track marks in his arm were any indication. He couldn't even remember shooting up, but with the fingers running through his hair and rubbing his scalp it didn't seem to matter, so he just closed his eyes and kept talking. "What are y' even tahking about, man? It's jest fuckin' hair. If anythin', yer the one with the fancy hair, all wavy with that crazy color n' shit."

"Yeah, but I've dyed it all sorts of colors. Underneath it all, it's just fucking boring brown hair. Not like yours. Yours is so soft and so fucking bright, and it's natural, isn't it?"

Pickles shrugged, feeling the fingers work. Occasionally they moved along his face, his neck, but it was all cool, everything was cool. "Yeh dood, it's jest my hair. Been like this since I was born, 'cept it's all, y'know, big 'n shit now."

"It's amazing," Frankie repeated, like Pickles' hair was some sort of miracle. It amused Pickles, but it also made him feel something else he couldn't quite pin down. Flattered, maybe? Or content? "It's like fire, like you're a fucking inferno all on your own." Pickles felt what might have been Frankie's lips brush against the top of his head, confirmed when he could hear the low voice vibrate against him. "I could burn alive in you. And I'd let you. I'd let you eat me up and burn me alive."

There was a short silence. Pickles let out a little chuckle, but Frankie did not move his lips from the crown of his head. "Dood, uh… thanks, but… I don't really know what y' mean. I'm naht, what y'seem to think I am…"

"No." He felt Frankie move away, but instead of getting up he leaned down to look at Pickles' face, staring straight at him as he touched his hair, his beard, his cheeks, his lips. Dazed, Pickles could do nothing but stare back. "No, you're _exactly_ what I think you are, and more, and just, so much more. I can't even believe you're real, you're- you're like a fucking _god._" Frankie had these sort of blue eyes that were so dark they were sort of black, and they stared at him, and Pickles stared back and watched the eyes and listened to the words roll over him. "I have to, I have to show you, what you fucking _are, _I _have_ to…" And Frankie's mouth was so close that Pickles could feel the words against his mouth, and then not even the words were there between them, and he felt so much more, like lips and softness and then a tongue like sugar and whiskey and it felt _good-_

And then Pickles pulled away, eyes wide and breathing a little heavily. "Dood, what the _fuck_?" he slurred, not so much angry as dazed and bewildered.

Frankie was breathing heavily, his face flushed and his eyes glazed. "Didn't you like it?" he asked, a hand slipping around his Pickles' waist, leaning down to kiss along his neck.

Pickles let out a little shuddering gasp at the feeling of the lips on his neck before pushing Frankie away, not very hard, but enough to put a little space between them. "Dood! I… I'm naht…" He struggled for an answer. It had felt good, at least, he thought it had, but he knew there was a reason why he wasn't supposed to do it, supposed to like it… "I'm naht gay!" he managed to get out, the old words kicking in like a reflex.

Frankie shrugged slightly, taking Pickles' hand in both of his larger ones. "That's OK, man," he said, running his fingers along Pickles'. "I don't need you to do anything for me, not a single fucking thing." He placed a kiss on each one of Pickles fingertips as he spoke. "I just wanna make you feel good tonight," he said, starting to suck on one of Pickles' fingers in between sentences. "All I want is to get you off."

Pickles watched as Frankie sucked rhythmically around his finger, getting down to the leather of his fingerless gloves, looking so damn _happy_ to be doing it, so damn _grateful_ to have Pickles shoved down his throat. It was a mindblowing sight, and Pickles started to feel himself harden against his jeans. "I- I'm naht gay," he tried again. "I fuck girls…"

"Then pretend I'm a girl," Frankie said in a rush, eyes wide in lustful desperation. "God knows it wouldn't be the first time. Just close your eyes and grab my hair, and I'm the best groupie slut you'll ever have." Frankie let go of Pickles' hand, one hand tangling in red hair, the other one rubbing the growing bulge in Pickles' jeans. "Fuck, _please_, Pickles, I want it," he whispered into his ear. "_Please_ let me suck your cock."

Pickles hissed at the touch, at the words, at the high, at everything. Yes, he knew that this was weird and yes, he felt like there was a reason why he shouldn't do this but _yes_, he wanted it, he wanted it too and he wanted it badly. "_Yes_," he said at last, threading his fingers in Frankie's long hair, guiding his head slightly down. "Yes, Frankie, do it. Suck me ahf."

Frankie moaned in appreciation and started kissing a line down Pickles' body, pausing at his midriff before kissing him through his jeans, those deft fingers starting to unbutton and unzip him. There was a pause, and he heard a second zipper go down before he felt thumbs hook around his waistband, pulling down his pants and briefs enough to expose him.

He barely had time to realize he had his dick out in public before he felt Frankie's hands on him, then his mouth, and all thoughts of decency left him for the pleasure. God, Frankie must have known what he was doing, because Pickles had had his fair share of groupies give him everything they had but this was _good,_ this was better than anything else that he had had before, because this wasn't just practiced fingers and a wet mouth and a clever tongue. This was thrill and joy, this was gratitude and shamelessness, this was desperately happy moans vibrating around his length and shaking him to his very soul. He grabbed that thick hair and pulled him closer, and Frankie came to him on his knees, head flush against his hips and only moving away to come close again, wanting nothing more than to give himself up to him.

And even though Frankie was right, that when he closed his eyes and grabbed that hair that Pickles could easily pretend this was just some (amazing, incredible) girl, he found that he didn't want to. He knew that it was Frankie, and he_ liked_ that it was him, he _wanted_ it to be him, and in between gasps and moans he opened his eyes and looked down at him. He looked down to see that it wasn't some pornstar-hot bitch that he had never seen before and would never see again, it wasn't some anonymous and hollow fuck that left him feeling as hungover as every other bad decision. It was Frankie that was doing this, making him feel like this, and he liked that. He liked that the hair in his fists was wavy and purple-but-not, he liked that the eyes looking up at him were so dark blue they seemed black. He even liked that he was a man: the Adam's apple sliding up and down as he sucked, the lowness of the moans as he tugged at that hair, the sound of him touching himself as Pickles slid in and out.

Pickles liked it all because all of it was _him_, this man that knew Pickles, this man that had seen his first nervous and awkward time onstage, seen him vomit off a balcony and onto a woman's head, seen him break down crying when the pressure had been too much. None of it had scared him, or disgusted him, or driven him away: he had stayed, he had been there. He had been there then, and he was here now, knowing who and what Pickles was, how broken and bastardized and weak he was, and still liking and touching and _wanting_ him, wanting him, wanting nothing but to have him for exactly who and what he was, and feeling wanted like that was the closest Pickles had ever come to feeling loved. He felt like he might die, like his heart might explode, like he might burst into the inferno that Frankie said he was, and that was all right, because it hurt in a way that was so fucking _good_ that he thought he could ask for no better way to die than like this, just exactly like this…

When he came, he felt Frankie swallow and swallow around him, heard him make his own sound of pleasure. Frankie zipped him up and helped him down, held him in his arms. When asked if he had liked it, Pickles could only nod. When asked why there were tears on his face, he didn't have an answer. When kissed, he kissed back, tasting himself on Frankie's lips. The two sat there in that dirty alley, stuck together by more than sweat, before Frankie helped him up and took him back to his hotel.


	4. A Little Something for Me

((So this was meant to be a part of Chapter 3 originally, but I made it its own chapter because Chapter 3 was already pretty long. Also because wow is Seth's point of view disturbing, both to write and probably to read as well. It's so much so that I feel it deserves a chapter all its own. Please let me know what you think!))

Seth probably should have gone back to the hotel once Pickles kicked him out, but he'd be damned if he let his little cocksucker of a brother determine what he would do. So he found himself at a bar nursing a beer, trying to ignore all the fags and pussies around him, and trying to figure out how he would get his fucking money.

In retrospect, he realized that he had gone about it wrong. Pickles had been persistently unresponsive, and he had lost his temper, saying things to him that, while true, incited too much anger and not enough fear. Pickles was quick to anger- that much was obvious to pretty much anyone that got on his bad side, let alone his own brother. Push a little too hard in the wrong places, and the kid would fly into these childish rages. It usually didn't amount to much- some broken property, some bruises, maybe the occasional broken bone. All sound and fury, precious little substance. It really was like a child having a temper tantrum, and Pickles lacked the smarts and the balls to really hurt him beyond that. But Pickles' anger, while more or less harmless, was also useless to Seth when it got that extreme.

No, what made Pickles useful was not his anger but his fear. The pussy could seethe and rage all he wanted, but when Seth dug into him just right, got his hooks into him just so, then his brother got so scared that he was putty in his hands. The physical intimidation was harder, now that Pickles was older and at least as strong as he was. Seth wasn't a big man, only an inch taller than Pickles, and while he was certainly more _effective_ with his violence, he was hardly anyone's go-to beat-em-up guy. Pickles clearly still remembered how Seth had punished his disobedience, and those memories clearly still affected him, but it wasn't enough. Seth needed to make him more afraid.

He took a sip of his beer, rubbing his chin in thought. It would have to be something personal. He could see if he was close with any of the bandmates, threaten to hurt them, but seeing as he had a flight back to Wisconsin in the morning it seemed like way too much work. No, it would have to be something more immediate, something more like blackmail. He had to find something Pickles was ashamed of, something that scared him, something that he would give anything to keep a secret. But these days he was wearing makeup and doing all the drugs under the sun. What was possibly left for him to be ashamed of?

Seth paid his tab and left the bar, going out for some air and a smoke. He lit up and took a drag, examining his seedy fucking surroundings with a look of disdain. That is, until he looked into a certain alley. Then it changed into a look of shock, and then a huge, ear-splitting smile.

He smiled like he had stumbled across five thousand dollars, and in a way, that was fitting. Because when he saw his rich bitch brother that wouldn't pay up, the same brother he wanted to get dirt on- when he saw him moaning like a whore while some pink-haired fag sucked him off in an alley, he may as well have found the cash lying at his feet.

Seth reached into his briefcase and pulled out a camera, taking shot after shot after shot. He stood there taking pictures for about thirty seconds before crushing his cigarette butt and going back inside the bar. This called for another drink.

He was feeling congratulatory and ordered himself a double scotch, grinning at his camera like the cat that got the canary. He was so pleased with himself that he didn't even notice the man coming up behind him until he felt himself being roughly turned around.

Seth put on his impassive face and looked up at the man glaring down at him. He almost didn't recognize they guy without his sunglasses, but after a moment he saw that it was the security guard that had let him in. "Hey bud, there a problem?" Seth asked, his voice smooth and unfazed.

"You're damn right there is!" the guy slurred at him. "I lost my fucking job because of you!"

Seth looked the guy over. He was a lot bigger than Seth, but made somewhat less intimidating by the fact that he had clearly had one (or five) too many. Still, this guy could mop the floor with him if he didn't play this right. He put on an expression of concern. "What, really? That's a fucking shame, sorry to hear that, man. My brother do that?"

The guard paused, blinking his glassy eyes a few times. "Yeah… because of you!" he added indignantly, gritting his teeth.

Seth couldn't let this guy focus his anger back on him, so he had to act quickly. The name of the game was deflect, deflect, deflect. "Dude, you were just doing your job. He fired you over _that_? Jeez. Now, he's my brother and I love him and all, but between you and me, the guy can be an asshole sometimes."

There was a pause, but then the guard began to nod. "Yeah. Yeah, I didn't do anything wrong, and now all I have is the tour, and then…" All at once, the man plopped down at the bar with him and began to sob- big, ugly, drunk sobs. "I have a little sister at home man, she's sick, I _need_ this money. God, I don't know what I'm gonna do."

Seth repressed the urge to roll his eyes. Fuck, if there was one thing that he was sick of, it was crying. He couldn't think of a single thing that made a person more repulsive to him than to see them start crying like a fucking child, dripping tears and snot all over the place. If he never saw another bitch turned ugly from the mascara running down her face, if he never saw another grown man blubber like he never even had a pair, it would be too fucking soon. Still, he managed to pat the guy's shoulder. "Fuck man, that's terrible. But… listen, I might be able to help you out. Did you say that you're still working the rest of the tour?"

The guard wiped his eyes and turned back. "Yeah."

"So do you still have access to Pickles' tour bus?"

He nodded, clearly not seeing where this was going. "Yeah. Sometimes I clean up the bastard's puke myself. Why?"

Seth reached into his bag and pulled out a fat fountain pen, the type you might see on an executive's desk. "Let me tell you about this little beauty," he said, holding up the pen for the lug to examine. "This was part of a little project I was part of, real top of the line shit. You see that black part at the top? And these little grooves here? This thing's actually a fucking _camera._ Real low-res, but thing takes video, audio, without people even noticing. And it's got battery life for _miles_- just put a couple double-As in it, and it can run for a month or more."

The guard looked at the pen, a bit surprised but still somewhat disgruntled. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Seth felt his trademark smirk on his face, a smirk that looked so like his brother's but was so, so different. "What do you say you give your soon-to-be ex employer a little 'fuck-you' before you go, and I give you three hundy to send to that sick sister of yours?" He put the pen in the guard's hand. "All I need," he said softly, closing the guard's fingers around the pen and pushing it gently towards his chest, "is for you to do a little something for me."


	5. Yer Here

When Pickles woke up he was hung over and sore, nothing on his body but old makeup and dried fluid and the sheets of an unfamiliar bed. Sadly, this wasn't too unusual of a morning ritual for him. The main difference was that he wasn't alone, and the person with him wasn't trying to sneak out or looking like they'd made a terrible mistake. He could feel the eyes on him before he even turned over, could swear he felt their night-blue color touching him before he even saw them. Night sky eyes that he felt unseen… he could have made that into a good song lyric if his head wasn't occupied with a dull throbbing. He rolled over with all the grace of a washed-up fish, and the sounds he made as he crawled into consciousness hardly resembled any form of human communication. But still, he managed to smile when he saw those twilight eyes that had remained past sunrise. "Yerrrr…" Pickles coughed, sniffled, cleared his throat, and tried to make something like words again. "Yer here."

Frankie smiled in earnest at Pickles' lackluster attempts to be a conscious, functioning human being. "Good morning to you too, sunshine," he said, weaving his fingers through Pickles' wild hair. "And of course I'm here. This is my fucking apartment, remember?"

Pickles remembered. He had drunk a lot the night before, even by his standards, but apparently not enough to forget. He remembered running into Frankie last night, the first time they had seen each other since he got back from the tour. He remembered the awkward silence that had stretched between them, until Frankie had smiled and offered to buy first round. He remembered that they had communicated in the universal language of substance abuse, drinking and shooting, laughing and talking for hours. He remembered that their shared glitzy sickness helped them break their silence, helped them find their tongues again until, in the darkened corner of a club, they had found each others'. He remembered the kiss starting up another universal language, one that also didn't need words, one they also spoke fluently. He remembered following Frankie, stumbling down the 3 am streets until they got to his apartment. He remembered tearing off clothes, his, Frankie's, whatever, so there would be nothing in between. He remembered endless skin they needed to explore, remembered taste and touch, remembered want and need. He remembered Frankie kissing him and counting his freckles even as he lit him up from the inside and made him see the face of God.

"Yeh," Pickles replied after a silence, his voice hoarse, his body tensing with nervousness as the memories returned. He propped himself up in the bed, going to rub his temples and pausing when he felt long fingers already doing it for him. "Yeh, I remember."

Pickles tried to think of something else to say, but nothing came. So he sighed, and the sigh turned into a small hum of satisfaction as he leaned into the touch. He was almost surprised that Frankie wasn't a guitarist, for all the magic that his fingers seemed capable of. But then, remembering back to last night, he was suited to be a drummer too- the endless energy, the multitasking, the ability keep rhythm. Pickles felt a shiver run through him. The fingers made him happy and the thoughts made him hard, and both of those things scared him a little.

"You OK?" Frankie asked, using his fingertips to guide Pickles' head in his direction, locking their eyes. "You seem sad or something."

Pickles stared at Frankie's eyes for what seemed like a long time, almost hypnotized, almost afraid, before he looked away. "Yeh, I'm OK. Well, I mean, I'm sorta better than OK, but also kinda worse, although the worse part is prahbably just the hangover tahking, I dunno."

Frankie chuckled a little. "I never would have picked you out for someone who spoke in riddles first thing in the morning." His voice was making light, but his eyes were still big and dark and trying to catch his gaze. Pickles avoided eye contact, afraid to look back into the gentle void, afraid he might fall in. But Frankie caught his gaze in the end, and in he fell, and the falling was a sweet freedom he hadn't allowed himself in so long. He got so lost in those eyes and in his thoughts that he didn't notice the pills or the water until Frankie practically held them at his lips. "Well, I can help with this part, at least," Frankie said, grinning. "A good addict always keeps aspirin and water around."

He felt Frankie's hand leave his head to press gently on his chin. Pickles let Frankie open his mouth and place three aspirin on his tongue, and went to swallow them until Frankie's thumb kept Pickles' chin in place, his mouth open. "Wait for the water, will ya?" Frankie said, tutting his impatience gently.

"I ohn eed it," Pickles insisted, as indignant as he could sound with his open mouth making him even more incomprehensible. What he had meant was that he didn't need water to swallow the pills. Years of experience with drug abuse had taught him how to swallow dry, either for aspirin or for something more psychotropic. Not that he expected Frankie to understand him when he sounded even more like the idiot he was.

But Frankie not only understood, but smirked and kissed his cheekbone. "Maybe you don't need it to swallow the pills, but you need it for the hangover. The key to recovery is hydration. Well, that or getting drunk again." And even if Pickles had had words to protest, he lost his chance as Frankie began to tilt the glass against his lips. He swallowed the pills and the water, and the liquid on his tongue reminded him how thirsty he was. He closed his eyes and drank until the glass was empty.

When he opened his eyes, Frankie had put the glass down and was stroking his hair again, his free hand casually moving along Pickles' bare chest. "You feel better?"

He paused to think about it for a moment, a little overwhelmed by everything. "…Yeh," he decided, "a little. But I coulda held my own fuckin' water," he added, a little indignantly. "It's naht like I'm a little kid or an invalid or somethin'."

He scraped his nails lightly on Pickles' chest. "Didn't say you were. But what can I say, I like you and I wanna take care of you. How about this? To make it fair, you can do it to me the next time."

Alarmed, Pickles turned his head toward him. "There's gonna be a next time?"

Frankie's fingers paused in their ministrations. "Well, I mean… yeah. Why shouldn't there be? I like being with you, and you like it too, right?" He laid his palm flat on Pickles' stomach, looked at him with those eyes that threatened to swallow him whole. "Last night was good… wasn't it?"

He wanted to say that it was OK, that it was nothing special, but the truth tumbled from his newly wet lips of its own accord. "Yeh," he said, a nervous chuckle escaping his throat, running a hand through his hair. "Yeh, it was _good_, Frankie, it was fuckin' _amazing._ It was even fuckin' better than the first time, 'cause I gaht…" His voice trailed off a little as he realized what he wanted to say, how potentially lame and disconcerting it was, but he could not stop himself from saying it. "I gaht to touch ya, and, y'know, feel ya an' shit."

Frankie still kept his eyes on him, even as he kissed the pale, hicky-dotted surface of Pickles' neck, even as his fingertips moved to outline his ribcage. Pickles inhaled like a gasp and exhaled like a moan as Frankie's lips worked, hands worked, as his whole body seemed to work to make him feel nice. "I couldn't agree more," he said once he removed his lips from his neck. "I love touching you." His actions made that seem true enough. He seemed unable to stop touching Pickles, but all the touches were gentle, exploratory, almost innocent, and the niceness of them made him even more ill at ease. "And I love it when you touch me. So what's the problem?"

"That _is_ the fuckin' prahblem!" he exclaimed, jerking away from Frankie's touch. Frankie stopped moving and stared at him, stock still, expressionless but for those wide eyes. Pickles huffed a little in irritation. "Sahrry, I just… _fuck_. It's… this is a laht fer me to try an' process at once, OK? I'm naht used to it bein' like that. An' I'm naht used to it bein' like _this."_

Frankie's eyebrow raised, but he did not try to touch him again. Part of Pickles was relieved at that, and part of him was miserable. "Like what?"

"Like _this!_" he repeated, his arm gesturing to the two of them, clearly frustrated. "You, here, bein' here wit' me in the mornin'. Me bein'… sober. An' you…" The words seemed to stick in his throat, but he forced them out. "You still wantin' to be here."

A silence hung between them. Frankie's eyes softened. He placed a hand on top of Pickles' hand, and Pickles did not stop him as he kept talking. "It's fine when I'm fucked up, y'know? It's all jest fuckin' noise an' colors and it's fine. I can do anyt'ing when I'm fucked up, because who's gonna give a fuck if the fucked up guy is actin' fucked up? It's different when I'm sober. They always leave in the mornin', because I'm naht fucking fun or cool or shit wit'out the booze and the drugs. People don't like me sober, I don't even fuckin' like me sober, I'd leave me too if I could. An' I can't do shit when I'm sober because I get real, an' everyt'in else gets real. It means the fact that you touchin' me is gettin' me hard is real, an' that it feels different wit' you than wit' anyone else I fucked is real, an' I'm naht used to stayin' sober dis long, or bein' sober wit' the guy that makes me feel like I've gotta be some fag for real, and it freaks me out, it really fuckin' freaks me out-"

"Hey." Frankie cut off his increasingly agitated rambling with a word. Pickles looked at him, bags heavy under his bright green eyes, and despite the coma-like sleep he looked so tired. Frankie squeezed Pickles' hand a little, opened his arms to him. "Come here."

And Pickles came. He came close to him, laid his face against Frankie's bare chest, let his arms close around him. He did not cry, did not dare to, but he took his harsh breaths against that warmth until the hysteria had subsided.

He couldn't have told you when the kissing began. Part of that was because the kisses were so different from last night, or the time in the alley, or any kissing he had done in years. It wasn't the desperate and passionate prelude to sex, wasn't biting or sucking, wasn't rough or demanding. It was gentle, calm. It was another form of care. He didn't see the kisses coming until they were placed directly on his lips, just like the pills and the water. And like the pills, they were put there to take away his pain. And like the water, he didn't know how thirsty he was for them until they had started.

He couldn't have told you how long they kissed, only that when they stopped, he wasn't so afraid. He settled close against Frankie's warmth, head on his shoulder, hands on his skin. His body was clearly smaller than Frankie's long and muscled form, but for the first time his comparative smallness did not make him feel angry or defensive or afraid. It made him feel comfortable and safe, but more than that, it made him feel like he fit here, like this was exactly where he was supposed to be.

They rested there for a while until Frankie broke the comfortable silence. "So you've never fucked anyone sober?" he asked quietly, and though his words were blunt, his tone and touch were gentle.

A dry mimicry of a chuckle escaped his throat. "Hell, it'd be safe to bet t'at like nine outta ten people have never _met_ me sober," he said lightly, trying to grin. "Sorta a rare thing wit' me."

Frankie scoffed a little, tugging on Pickles' earlobe. "That didn't answer my question."

Pickles scowled a little at him, then sighed. "Fine, ya douchebeag. No, I haven't fucked anyone sober, all right?" He paused there, but Frankie, sensing he had more to say, let the silence continue until Pickles spoke again. "It sorta jest comes wit' the territory. I mean, I've been drinkin' since I was six, an' bein' drunk is jest _better_ than bein' sober. I told ya, I don't have to worry about shit when I'm drunk, or when I'm high, so it's easier to do everythin'. Includin', y'know, fuckin'."

Frankie sighed, then fought his way through Pickles' mane of hair to plant a kiss on his head. "Yeah, I get that. I'm just surprised that you never once fucked a girl sober, good looking guy like you. Didn't you ever have a girlfriend or anything?"

Pickles tensed a little at that, but Frankie sensed it and started rubbing his shoulders. "It's OK, man, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want."

All the tension Pickles had managed to gather melted under those fingertips. How the hell did this guy manage that? His tongue seemed to loosen as well, and he began to speak again. "It's OK, dood. Yeh, I'm not so much the girlfriend type, I guess. I mean, there was this girl when I was back in Wiscahnsin. She was real sweet, y'know, gaht good grades, did sports, family was religious, the whole fuckin' thing. But she saw me bein' all fuckin' rebellious an' she liked that, an' she liked my music, had a voice like an angel. She sang in her church's choir, fer chrissakes, but there she was, singin' along wit' me to Metallica an' Slayer in the back of my brother's van." He smiled a little. "Anyway, I liked her a laht, an' I guess she liked me too, I dunno, but she didn't like the taste of beer an' shit when I kissed her. An' so I wouldn't drink so much wit' her, an' sometimes I made out wit' her even when I was sober, felt her up a little, whatever. Never went past that though, her parents decided I was a bad influence ahn her an' wouldn't let me see her anymore." He clenched his fists, unclenched them. "Never did say goodbye to her, but by that point she was datin' some football player so, whatever. All the ot'ter girls and- well, all of them were mostly just skanks, y'know, an' I got nothin' against skanks, but uh, they mostly just wanted to fuck a rock star, so I was pretty fuckin' gone by the point they wanted to fuck, so… yeh."

Frankie looked at him the whole time that he was talking, attentive and silent. Once he was finished, Frankie sighed a little, squeezed Pickles' shoulder. "That's a sad story," he said matter-of-factly.

"Shuddup, ya douchebeag," he said, but that didn't stop him from shifting slightly towards the contact.

"I'm serious. It sounds like you're not used to being around people without being fucked up, or even being around yourself without being fucked up. It's like you don't think anyone can like you for who you are without all that shit, and that's sad."

"Dood, whatever," Pickles said dismissively, not looking at him and turning away from him in the bed. "It's not like I'm some little bitch bein' all mopey an' whinin' my ass off, like 'Oh poor me, everything sucks and no one likes me, boo hoo hoo.' I'm a fuckin' glam god, I don't fuckin' care that I have to get fucked up first, so what fuckin' difference does it make?"

Frankie shifted so he was spooning Pickles as he turned away, trailing fingertips along his neck. "I guess it doesn't make a difference, except you're completely wrong about two things."

"Oh yeh?" He tried to sound indignant even when the casual touch made him shiver. "And what the fuck am I wrong aboot, smartass?"

"Like I said, two things." He placed a single kiss on his neck. "One. You say you don't care, but you're wrong. You _do_ care that you have to get fucked up first. As fun as getting fucked up is, I bet you want someone who likes you, who wants to fuck you even when you're sober, even when you're nothing but yourself, don't you?" Pickles went to protest, but Frankie put a finger on his lips. "Let me finish," he murmured into Pickles' ear, and Pickles did as he placed a second kiss on his neck. "Two. You think that no one could like you sober, but you're wrong. Because _I_ do."

Frankie pressed on his shoulder, and Pickles let himself be pushed gently onto his back. He watched as Frankie propped himself up, his colorful hair spilling over his shoulder, and watched as he looked down at Pickles intently. "I've liked you since I met you, Pickles, and there's nothing about you that's changed that. I like you when you're killing it onstage, I like you when you're crying backstage, I like you when you're puking your guts out, I like you when you're hungover in the morning. I like you fucked up, sober, and everything between. There's no part of you I don't like, and there's no part of you I wouldn't fuck. OK?"

Pickles looked back up at him, eyes wide, too afraid to move. He was so close to allowing himself to really feel something, and feelings were dangerous, feelings were meant to be tamped down and numbed out. "I like you too," he finally managed. "But I'm, uh, I'm naht used to this sorta shit, I told you. I kinda t'ink, y'know, I'd be too freaked out to fuck right away, y'know, wit'out some booze or, somet'hin' to help out." He covered his eyes with the heels of his hands and groaned. "Fuuuuuck, I sound like sech a pussy right now."

"That's OK," Frankie replied, unfazed. He waited for Pickles to take his hands off his eyes, let their gazes lock again. "It's not like we can fix everything in a day. It's fine. We have time."

They had only just begun to kiss again when they heard a beeping, loud and persistent, from across the room. Pickles tried to ignore it for a while, until Frankie broke away and asked if he knew what that was. "It's my beeper, prahbably," Pickles grumbled. "The guys need some way to get in touch wit' me when I go missing." He kicked the sheets away and rolled gracelessly out of bed, walking naked over to his discarded pants where his pager beeped insistently in the pocket.

It wasn't a number that he recognized, which was odd. There were only a handful of people that he had given this number to: the guys in the band, some guys at the label. He shrugged, figuring that maybe he had just forgotten this number. It just told him to show at a certain bar in town in half an hour, and he figured it must be important if he was getting paged about it.

He groaned a little as he pulled on his pants, hunting around for his shirt, gloves, and other discarded things. "I gahta go," he said to Frankie. "Someone at the label wants me to meet 'em soon."

"Oh." Frankie couldn't help but sound a little disappointed, but he understood the need to leave at a moment's notice. "Yeah, OK. Wanna meet up again soon?"

Pickles grinned at him. "Yeh, definitely. Maybe tonight. Same time, same bar. Sound good?"

Frankie smiled back, and Pickles couldn't help but notice how it lit up his face. "Sounds great." He got out of the bed, still naked, and grabbed Pickles' ass as he bent over to get something. Pickles made a sound of surprise, but smirked back at him as he stood up. "Asshole," he said, but Frankie covered his mouth with a kiss before he could say more.

After the kiss, Pickles' gaze shifted from Frankie's eyes to his chest, but for a moment they didn't let go. They stood there, Pickles dressed and Frankie naked, Pickles' newly gloved palms resting on Frankie's shoulders, his bare fingers digging in enough to leave marks. "I'm scared," he said, his lips barely moving, his voice barely making a sound. He was just barely admitting the truth of it, never saying it loudly enough that it couldn't be denied. He didn't know exactly what he was scared of, whether it was growing close to a man, or simply growing close to anyone, or simply allowing himself to be real for too long, but the fear was there. His fingers dug in, held on, showed he wanted to stay, but his voice let out the barest indication of forbidden weakness, so that this man might know why Pickles never quite stayed relaxed.

Frankie did not respond to his quiet confession in words, for that would throw them off this delicate balancing act they were performing, but he held Pickles' clothed shoulders just as hard. He tried to show through his grip that he knew, he got it, he accepted him for it, and that one day that fear might fade. In the end it was only two quiet words in a filthy apartment, two broken men holding onto each other's shoulders, but there was still language there. This time, neither one of them was fluent, but that moment was the most earnest of fractured communication, and something like the intended messages made their ways across.

And just like that Pickles let go, and the moment ended. "I'll see ya," Pickles said, and he was out the door and gone.

There were many times after that day where Pickles remembered that morning, remembered being sober and honest and open, remembered them holding each other on the threshold of goodbye. Even he could see the promise there, and in his late-night coming-down doubt he would wonder how it could have been different. They were both fucked up, no doubt, but they might have been a matching set of rejects, broken halves of a whole. But then he remembered what had happened, and he didn't like how that made him feel, he didn't like to feel at all. So he would drink away sincerity, drink away the echo of Frankie's unknowing lie, the last thing he had said before that fucking beeping had torn them apart. _We have time, _his lie echoed, growing sweeter and more unbearable each time he failed to black it out. _We have time, we have time, we have time._


End file.
